Welcome to Jennie of the Jungle!

Oh hi! I just spent last Saturday with a giant golden eagle named Scout, a smaller and more skittish prairie falcon, and a lovely Harris's hawk. I was meeting with the founders of the Southwest Wildlife Foundation, Martin and Susan Tyner, to discuss joining the foundation as a volunteer fundraising events coordinator. Martin is known as "The Eagle Man" and is often seen with Scout in tow, as he is a master falconer and trained to hunt with eagles. Scout is very much a wild eagle, and flies freely, but has a special and mutually beneficial bond with Martin. In Martin's own words, "I flush out rabbits from the brush and Scout dives after them from high in the air; basically he's the hunter and I'm his dog, and I'm a good dog so he keeps me." Martin's stories can be heard as he travels around Utah and other western states showing off his birds as part of educational programs for children and adults alike. He has been through many an experience w...

If you prefer the gift of donation over material giving, then there are some choices for you this year. Many non-profits are upping their use of the internet to increase their presence in the donor-market. Here are some of the choices that I've riled up for you. After all, generosity is the greatest gift of all... www.kiva.org Kiva's mission is "to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty." Kiva is using the internet to create a global communities of people connected through lending. With Kiva, individuals can make microloans to entrepreneurs across the globe and those in need. Kiva was born of the following beliefs: People are by nature generous, and will help others if given the opportunity to do so in a transparent, accountable way. The poor are highly motivated and can be very successful when given an opportunity. By connecting people we can create relationships beyond financial transactions, and build a global community expressing su...

Mmmm...nothing like a warm cup of coffee to get you going in the morning. But does your coffee come at an enormous cost? We're not just talking pocketbook here, we're talking environment. The beginnings of coffee-growing were quaint and quite non-destructive. For over 150 years, coffee was grown under the shade of canopy trees in the rainforest. In the 1970's a new, high-output method of growing coffee was introduced, in which the shade trees and everything else around was cut and cleared so that coffee plants could be planted densely and doused with pesticides and other agrochemicals. This produced more product for the growers, but has sacrificed generations of wildlife that have suffered at the hands of habitat-loss. Sustainable methods of coffee-growing, in which canopy trees and original forest is kept intact and coffee is planted in their midst, is actually beneficial to the environment and to wildlife. Biodiversity is maintained and therefore so is the wildlife that i...

Hello again. This is probably one of my most important posts, as a lot of people request information from me on cheap volunteer projects abroad. Whether you want to volunteer for a couple of weeks or a couple of years, I'm gonna give you some information on how to do it without spending the thousands of dollars that some companies want you to pay them for setting you up with volunteer opportunities. Yes projects are expensive, but a lot of these "middle-man" companies take a profit from your contribution to the charity that you choose to volunteer with. So it's much cheaper to find these projects on your own. That's where I come in. When I'm not working my arse off to make actual money doing lab work, I'm in the jungle or the forest working with wildlife on a volunteer basis. Though my ultimate goal is to build my own wildlife sanctuary, I enjoy traveling around the world doing various volunteer projects with different kinds of wildlife. My first volunteer...

Crude This documentary is a demonstration of selflessness of the greatest kind. Having been to the Amazon, revering it as one of the greatest spots for biodiversity in the world and the "lungs of the planet", this film hits home with me. For 13 years, 30,000 Ecuadorians, one lawyer, one advocate, and numerous rainforest charities have been fighting a "David and Goliath" battle against one of the biggest corporations in America; Chevron/Texaco. Their funds small and their hearts big, they've taken on this case throughout numerous Ecuadorian presidents and now a new Judge in the case (hence the time it has taken to come to a final decision). Meanwhile, native Amazonian Ecuadorians continue to get sick and perish upon large oil waste sites on which they've unknowingly built their homes. They continue to drink and bathe in river water that has been contaminated by petrochemicals for centuries. All this in a once-pristine jungle landscape where some of the native...

I just finished a great book I just had to share. It's called Whatever You Do, Don't Run, true tales of a Botswana safari guide, by Peter Allison. In it, Peter describes his years as a safari guide, the stupid things he has done to almost be killed by the ferocious predators of Africa, and the quirky people he has met along the way. It's one of the most pleasing books I've ever read. Quick read and absolutely hilarious. If you're interested in animal anecdotes, pick it up and give it a read. This is the first entry in the book that made me laugh out loud: the background is that his camp is experiencing a mouse plague, where literally you can throw a shoe into the corner of your tent and kill at least two mice. Peter has tried to alert the camp management (who are based in another location) about the problem, as mice are not typically found on the list of wildlife that tourists on safari would like to see. The camp management simply sends them one small, ecofriendly ...

I'm in Brazil at the moment, for a quick beach vacation and a run in the Atlantic Forest. But I ran into this and had to share it. :) :) :) Meet the Sloths Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo . It's from a sloth rescue center in Costa Rica, called Aviaros del Caribe - the world's only sloth orphanage. Baby 2 and 3 toed sloths, whose mother's have either been run over or zapped by power lines are brought to the sanctuary and looked after by legendary sloth whisperer Judy Arroyo. For more sloth photos and videos follow this blog: pinktreefrog.typepad.com/ or twitter twitter.com/amphib_avenger. For more on the sanctuary go to slothrescue.org/.